Skills

Hakko FX888D Soldering Station

Description: For over 50 years, Hakko has been producing superior quality soldering and desoldering tools. They’re dependable, a good value and they work really well! We use Hakko irons in production and we think they’re great.

The Hakko FX-888D is an updated digital version of the popular FX-888 and includes several new features. Selectable preset temperatures and digital calibration make it easier to setup and operate, and the new password protection and low temperature alarm provide process control and helps protect against cold solder joints!

Note: This iron will come with the T18-D16 chisel tip. Check below for replacements and other options.

I’m from Europe, so no 110V here and I’d rather not use a clunky converter because I’m very limited in space.

But… I got a 220V > 24V transformer in the mail today, so I’m going to replace the 110V transformer with that one. I found a video on YouTube where someone did this and it worked out perfectly for him. Had a quick talk with him and he pointed me to the transformer he used. It cost me about 18 euro and he said it will take about 20 minutes to do.

Note: I don’t recommend doing it this way if you value your warranty, because obviously you’ll void it. Don’t know if this will keep working, but the guy I got the tips from says his station still works like when it was new.

This is a great soldering station. The digital input is easy to use and the temperature setting stays where you left it when you turn it back on. The all-metal stand is of quality and easy on the eyes. I’d buy this again, but I don’t think mine will quit any time soon.

The product photo has placed the wire sponge in the back where the hot end of your iron would go. This is incorrect. Though the placement is entirely up to the user, the wire sponge is supposed to sit in the crevice between the iron holder and the wet sponge, per the Hakko directions.

It really really really sucks that you can’t sell the 220V version :‘(
Anyway, I think you should specify (and warn in red or something) that this is not valid in Europe, because I almost buy it until I read in the comments that is 120V!

Wow, you guys are just out of stock for pretty much everything huh? Both soldering stations you carry are BO, most of the good solder, ribbon cables, your meter is discontinued, SparkFun is kinda hurting right now…

I LOVE this iron. One thing I wish SF would carry (and that I can’t live without) is the Hakko T18-BR02 tip. It is a standard conical tip that is bent around 30°. It is SO much easier to solder through-hole components, and I would imagine that it would help even more with surface mount stuff. It allows you to hold the working edge parallel against the board while actually holding the wand at a 30° angle. Perfection!

Hakko is difficult, and this difficulty makes the market for clones exists, quite a shame really.
I sucked it in, and paid $270 for my 888d, and can’t say I regret it now, it’s an supergood iron, but it was kinda hard to swallow the pill when ordering.

The regular sponge (in the front) is a more gentle cleaning option compared to the wire one, and doesn’t clog up with excess tin as much over time.
I have no idea why the photographer decided to put the wire one in the back, though. It’s supposed to go in the little curved slot at the front - yet it looks rather comfy where it is, too, so all that open space must be useful for something :)

it comes packaged as pictured, so it got shot that way. it does actually work well in the back though. it sits far down enough that you can press your tip into the sponge right before you set it on the cradle. either way works.

Mine came with the sponge packaged in it’s own plastic bag with specific instructions to put it in the opening above the normal sponge and not in the back. Personally I don’t think you would want it sitting in the sponge as it would constantly be removing heat from the iron both needlessly heating up the sponge and needlessly working the heating element of the iron (but I could be wrong about this). One thing is for sure though, with mine sitting in front of me on a desk I would have to stand up to effectively see what I’m doing when cleaning the tip with the sponge in the back.

I was looking at the manual trying to figure out how you can do all those settings with just two buttons, but it pretty much says but the wire one in that front hole.

I’m also wondering why it has a password to protect the settings. If I ever get one, do undesirable people commonly break into people’s homes and businesses and change someone’s soldering temp settings. Whats this world coming to. :-)

But seriously this doesn’t look like its meant to be a shared tool like in a production environment.

I have a discontinued Hakko 929. It requires a card that is punched with a pattern of holes to be inserted before the temperature can be changed. The 929’s card and the FX888D’s password prevent ‘employees’ from changing the temperature and ruining the circuits by lifting the pad with too much heat.

Yea I guess I never thought how things work in production environments. But again I just assumed this model iron is more of a prosumer tool and not really used in a shop. But now I know.

Its kind of like when I started working for a cab company and the quantity of stuff they have to keep in stock to keep 300 cabs on the road. Windshield wiper fluid comes in a small tanker truck and is pumped into 250 gallon holding tanks. Car engines are considered a stock items, not a “special order”. :-)

I think that’s what I have too at home. It won’t stop working though, sorry. Mine was 5+ years old and was used in contract manufacturing. I bought it used and I’ve had it for 10 years now. I still use the original tip even… It still works like new. It won’t die. I only like buying things once.

Also I really need a temp controlled iron. I thought a 40w single temp iron would work but its too hot. So I hacked together a temp control using a lamp dimmer and its helping. I marked out some numbers around the dial and 7* seems to work best with the generic lead free solder I’m using. I just got the small roll of leaded solder from here and will see how that goes. I also have a thermocouple that plugs into my multimeter so I could sort of calibrate the iron.

Oh and my scale goes to “11” you know when you need just a little bit more heat to get the job done.

Great Iron, Poor Digital User Interface

This is a solid, well-built iron but the two-button, three-LED-digit user interface on this model is a real letdown. It’s harder to use than I expected and essentially doesn’t deliver any of the claimed benefits of a digital UI. I think they should have used a click-in rotary encoder knob or a three-button interface at the minimum. Moreover the LED display for example only distinguishes between the set-point and calibration mode (which you don’t want to be in by accident!) by the location of a tiny unlabeled dot. The UI is just too poor to be taken seriously, so set it to one temperature and leave it there.

The iron and iron holder are exceptionally well-built, nicely designed and carefully thought out too. Photos just don’t do them justice. When you use the product, these are the parts you interact with and on this model they’re simply excellent.

Sparkfun ships this with the T18-D16 tip which is probably great for beginners. Experts will need finer or specialized tips but luckily Hakko-compatible tips are readily available and very cheap.

Amazing value!

Before I purchased this station I tried using a generic soldering iron to connect ~119 of the NeoPixel LEDs into a large matrix. Needless to say that my generic el-cheapo iron was completely useless for the task that added to my growing frustration. As soon as I got my hands on this Hakko station I couldn’t tear myself away. I got a few different tips and experimented on a few LEDs to find out what method would work best before continuing. Here are some quick highlights from my experience…

Replacement of tip is super easy!

Once you press the On button, the iron will heat to about 750F (399C) in approximately 15 seconds.

I generally didn’t play with the temperature (the settings need more experienced users)

Tinning the tip with a leaded 60/40 worked as expected

The standard wedge tip works great even on small components, but there are ~100 different tips available from Hakko including very fine tips

The weight of the iron is very comfortable (much more maneuverable then my el-cheapo)

This station made it straightforward to solder 22AWG stranded wire to the NeoPixel. For best results: tin the front side of the NeoPixel connector with plenty of flux, then solder the wire to the back… allowing the back side solder and the tinned front to ‘fuse’ together around both sides of the tiny connector

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